


Buzzfeed: Unsolved and Watcher Ficlets!

by FireflyAndTheStoryJar



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), S.W.A.T. (TV 2017), Watcher Entertainment RPF
Genre: Aliens, Among Us AU, Angst, Blood, Canon Divergence, Hurt No Comfort, I know, Language, Major character death for a chapter, Mentions of Minor Injuries, Multi, Ryan's possessed but not??, Somewhat Vague Gore, The Author Doesn't Know What's Going On, but it's ok, it hurts me too, mostly - Freeform, space, spookiness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:27:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24896917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireflyAndTheStoryJar/pseuds/FireflyAndTheStoryJar
Summary: Just a collection of BFU and Watcher ficlets I've done and posted on Amino or written and wanted to share here! :)Enjoy!
Relationships: Ira & Eric, Ira/Eric, Ricky Goldsworth & Shane Madej, Ryan Bergara & Sara Rubin, Ryan Bergara & Shane Madej, Ryan Bergara & Steven Lim & Shane Madej, Ryan Bergara/Marielle Scott, Shane Madej & Marielle Scott, Shane Madej/Sara Rubin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	1. Something Isn't Right...

**Author's Note:**

> This ficlet was originally posted on the BFU Amino, so go check out what else I do on there!  
> An artist under the name Vasilicaly on the BFU Amino had posted an art piece called "Something's Not Right", and I wrote this ficlet with their permission. Go check out their work on the Amino, YouTube, and even their Instagram! They're an amazing artist!

Shane didn’t see this coming. No one did, not even the crew themselves. Guess the silver-lining of it all was that the fans were right about one thing.

It was supposed to be a simple investigation of an abandoned orphanage that apparently had ghosts inside its walls. A little banter here, a little screaming and laughing there— the usual set up. But right from the get-go, things started to not add up.

It started when Ryan had found a place to hold the debriefing. He had been so insistent on it that the crew had to their best with the moderately echoing hall he picked. Shane had tried to persuade him to pick a better room instead, but he was met with a hard, empty stare and a head tilt from the shorter host, along with a slight frown to accompany the look. He felt like those dark brown eyes were digging into his soul, analyzing every little bit of him. It reminded him of something, but he couldn’t place it.

With that decidedly out of the way, the two finished setting up as Ryan chatted with him as if nothing had just happened. It set off alarm bells in Shane’s head, but he dismissed them and blamed it on the building; even if he didn’t believe in what Ryan did, the little guy had probably psyched himself out and was acting a little on edge.

Another peculiarity happened during the breaks of the debriefing where they’d have a bit to break up the episode. Whenever Shane would laugh, Ryan would just grin a little too broadly for it to be a genuine smile. This time, however, Shane knew what the look was. It was the same face Ryan pulled when he pretended to be Ricky— a wide grin, glassy eyes, and an air of danger were all signs that he was acting as the fictional man.

“I didn’t know Ricky was joining us this season.” Shane joked, finally able to confront Ryan indirectly. The smile didn’t dwindle, and his eyes still held a strange look in them, something almost... animal-like. Shane took in a quiet breath at the lack of response, not really liking this extreme dedication to the role. Then the other laughed, it coming out genuine and wheezy. That put Shane at slight ease, and he shakily joined in.

“I had you going, didn’t I? That was hilarious!” Ryan beamed with an excited grin, his brown eyes much more alive than they were previously. Shane rolled his eyes in response, still chuckling in an uncertain way. A part of him nagged at his brain that Ryan had never gone that far before. Another part of him blamed it on the house and the upcoming spooky holiday. He ultimately decided to let it go, listening idly to Ryan’s low voice drone on about the orphanage’s history.

Throughout the night, different little incidents happened that even struck Shane as unnatural. Noises that didn’t have a plausible source, the spirit box having actual clear pieces of dialogue, the feeling of abandonment that started to weigh on him the moment he walked into one of the many bedrooms around them. All of it was really weird to him, and even more difficult to explain. On top of it all, Ryan had been more silent and focused on the evidence he was trying to get, and less jumpy when things did happen, even laughing at Shane’s confession to the lonely feeling he got when he entered the orphans’ bedrooms. Shane was starting to feel beyond just uneasy, and couldn’t wait for the cameras to shut off for the night so he could talk with Ryan about his behavior.

They were staying in the back room of the location, lying on the floor in sleeping bags that kept in some warmth the two men respectively gave off. Shane sat up in his bag after an hour of restless sleep, seeing Ryan sitting up as well with his back to him. He was mumbling something under his breath, too quiet for Shane to hear. It was... disturbing, to say the least.

“Ryan, you ok?” Shane asked hesitantly, turning his body to face Ryan a little more head-on. No response was given, just the quiet mumbling that was starting to scare him. It sounded like amalgamations of words tied together in a mixing pot of rambling. Shane edged closer, reaching out a hand slowly as he attempted to get the shorter’s attention.

“Ryan... what are you—?“ Once his hand touched the other’s shoulder, he was done for. Ryan’s head snapped up to look behind him, his eyes gleaming a sinister gold that added to the gruesome smile he had tattooed on his face. Before Shane could react, the other was straddling him and laughing breathily, the voice weak and low. Shane struggled in the grip, kicking on instinct as he yelled for Ryan to get off of him.

“Wrong name, Long Legs!! Call me Ricky!” Ryan’s (or rather, Ricky’s) voice was shrill and off, mixing with his normal voice and a more evil-sounding one. His one-handed grip on Shane’s neck was crushing, causing the taller one to try and gasp for air that wouldn’t come quick enough. With his movements turning sporadic, Shane’s fearful eyes watched the man’s hand reach into the bag nearby and pull out a large kitchen knife, it shimmering in the dull moonlight that streamed in through a foggy window.

With what little breath Shane had left, he screamed a throaty cry as Ricky lifted the knife up into the air and brought it down swiftly...

...into the wooden floor near Shane’s shoulder. The two paused for a moment, staring into each other’s eyes before Shane broke the silence with a hearty laugh. Ryan wheezed alongside him, sitting up from his hovering position on the other.

“That went so much better than I thought it would!” Ryan giggled as he stood up and helped a still laughing Shane onto his feet, his eyes blinking a little rapidly with irritation. He hated colored contacts; they didn’t fit his eyes as well as his prescription ones did.

“For a minute there, I thought you were going to miss and stab me for real!” Shane joked as he walked towards the camera, fiddling with the ‘Stop Recording’ button as Ryan picked up a red bottle from his bag and looked over towards him. He poured a little of the red liquid onto his hands as he spoke, flicking some droplets at his own face and rubbing a little on his fingertips.

“We practiced that part over a hundred times, remember? I knew what to do,” Ryan walked over, his golden contacts glimmering in the slight light of a flashlight. He gingerly took the camera from Shane, thinking about the last part of the bit. “You go back and act like you’re trying to crawl away while I close us out.”

The taller smirked and stalked back to the door, leaning against the frame as he waited for his cue. Ryan blinked a few times as he started recording once more before his mouth drew into a creepy grin, so similar to the one he had on mere minutes ago. Off frame, he used his crimson-tinged finger to point at Shane, getting quiet pained whines to start sounding out.

“I guess now we know for certain there’s a ghost in this orphanage... but as for all the other souls in the building, we can’t be too sure... regardless, the terrifying case of the Cherryrose Orphanage remains...” Ryan paused his narration as he looked off-screen, seemingly to the floor. Shane gave a gargled rasp, rubbing a hand on the wooden wall to sound as if he was crawling slowly. Ryan’s grin curled up wider and he looked back at the camera, his golden eyes shimmering in the faint light.

“...Unsolved... Happy Halloween from Ricky Goldsworth.” Ricky laughed in an unsettling way, the sound mixing with Shane’s dying croaks as the recording stopped.

At least the fans were right about one thing; Ricky was back, and even better than ever.


	2. Basically a Shooting Star!

Ira hadn't really planned to stay much longer than a year or two on the blue planet far from his home galaxy. It was mostly an accident that led to him holding a handheld camera while ducking into a bush with a human man for the human race's internet. Honestly, it was kinda hilarious luck for him to even crash land into some rolling hills far from any human city. At least, to him in the now. His past self, well... he had some choice words to spout when he recovered from temporary unconsciousness.

His introduction to the planet humans liked to call "Earth" was a bad one, one he didn't like remembering whenever he had to record his transmission for his home's council of control (An interesting group by any standards, alien or human or something else). It had been heavily raining, lightning and thunder still haunted in Ira's psyche when he recalled what led to his being stranded. He had been preparing to leave to return some other day when his ship was struck by a stray bolt of electrifying light, the boom so loud that it shook his flexible skull inside his deep magenta hide. He had flinched hard from the burst of light and crack of sound, sending the ship downward at high speed. It was a miracle he could still breathe when he awoke next, given how rough he looked and felt. He had been utterly devastated when he finally stood up on his four legs to look for his ship in the muggy dawn light; the dark blue, metallic hull of the small personal pod was partially buried into the singed grass and dirt of the hill he had crashed into. The strong glass of the front had a hole in it from where Ira had been thrown through during the impact (explained why he was covered in scrapes and bruises, he guessed), and overall, it looked as if the tech inside looked fried and almost beyond annihilated, much like how the outside was-- scratched, curled in on itself, dented, no longer live wires hanging out.

If Ira had been honest with himself right then, he should've taken the crash as a sign to stay on Earth until he could make contact with his home planet's council. But no, he had to mess around with his ship and waste time when he could've been exploring the world around him. Just as well, he supposed nowadays. It took too long to repair even the most basic of functions with what he knew and had on hand, especially with how different human technology was to that which he was used to working with. Oh yeah, did he mention that he had to eventually go out into the human society to get necessary parts? Yeah, that was another rough obstacle. He could cloak himself pretty easily... if he had a data pool of humans to draw from. So, several Earth days had been spent getting glimpses of different kinds of humans hiking from where his ship had landed, watching different ones walk and move, and observing at how their features moved when they spoke. Once he had enough of clear data, he squinted his red and pink eyes and watched as his usually calloused dark hide turned pale with dark moles spotting him in different places. From there, it was pretty easy to snag some clothes from a campsite near the edge of the wooden area and trek the black path spotted and striped with yellow and white towards a bustling city.

Ira stole what he needed to commence basic repairs, but eventually, he stalled into more advanced repairs that would take weeks or even months to just get it to be sustainable for a slow trip home (a month's worth if he didn't have his boosters, which was not really necessary for basic travel and harder to fix without his home's tech). On top of the already slow process that was two weeks of repairing basic mechanics, the weather had still not been kind to him. The heat was much worse than Rylon was, and it had Ira down and out for many hours until the late afternoons and evenings or up early during the cool dawns. Water was enough to keep him going in his normal skin, along with whatever wildlife was unfortunate to run into him. The rain was much more worrying, however. It tended to flood the unprotected hull and get into sensitive equipment. The alien had tried to cover it with foliage, but when that turned to be unsuccessful, he took some large plastic coverings from another human's camp and covered it up during rainy days. It did better, but he still couldn't work much with how limited he was.

So, with the ever-building odds, Ira decided to just give it a rest and do what he had been sent to do; study humans in different environments. He had been doing it when he was researching for his human disguise, but that had been those exploring nature. He went into the city he had often went to get equipment and start what he later came to excuse it as "people watching". He documented how different humans acted and dressed, how interactions differed from being to being, and even how some got aggressive with one another. One particular behavior had caught his eye when he was traveling into a less than nice part of the area; the almost secretive swapping of currency for something he could never really decipher until later. There were different substances and packages he managed to get to see before the mostly hidden individuals separated. He didn't stick around those places long either; human authorities usually showed up after a few meetings he saw in different places. An illegal activity, he hypothesized.

Another trend that was safer and more curious was when he saw some people carrying cameras and talking about something or other. It was utterly new and bizarre, even to their fellow humans. One guy actually had bumped into him and nearly dropped his bag on his non-camera arm. It had caused them both to stumble and stop in their tracks.

"I'm so sorry, I wasn't paying attention." The shorter man said as he righted himself on his feet, his dark eyes looking up at Ira in flustered panic. Ira blinked before finally getting himself to speak. First interaction, how exciting and nerve-wracking!

"It is quite alright, I promise. What were you doing, if you don't mind me inquiring?" Ira smiled, an awkward thing he was still learning to replicate. The guy didn't seem to really notice it as he smiled back and clicked a few buttons on the handheld device.

"Oh, just recording something for a video I'm making. I'm a terrible multitasker though, as you saw just then. I'm Eric, by the way." The human, Eric now, stuck out a sunkissed, calloused hand towards Ira, not breaking the eye contact. Ira floundered for a moment, his own pale hand twitching before he finally got it right and shook his hand. "Heh, I'm guessing you're new to L.A."

"Yes, incredibly new. I'm Ira. Do you take up residence here?"

The two of them really hit it off, getting off the street and into some place Ira couldn't identify right then to talk with each other. Ira let Eric talk about himself mostly since he was enamored by the dark-haired, put-together human's life and personality. Whenever Eric asked about his life, he just said he bounced around different places to see how the world was. Technically not a lie, but heavily diluted to the point it was probably sketchy. Eric didn't call him out on it, which gave the alien time to really work on building a life around this human version of himself. Eric tried to give him a phone number, but when it was found Ira had no phone, the video creator set another meet up at the bar they had huddled into that day the next day.

For the first time since he crashlanded, Ira was looking forward to something in the morning. In just a matter of two days' time, he had been able to learn even more about Eric. In that time as well, he had to come up with a human version of himself and actually make himself blend even more in with humans. He managed to come up with a type of history for himself before looking for a job that would accept anyone no matter how unqualified they were. He found a lead the day after his and Eric's latest meeting, which helped humanize him further. The currency he earned was pretty good for also getting certain tools and parts for his ship, so it was doing good all around. It felt nice to truly fade in with the human race.

Weeks turned into months, months of pure fun with Eric. The guy, although a bit egotistical at times, was unlike anything or anyone he had studied during his scouting missions. Excitable, confident, and, of course, creative. Ira found out pretty quickly the human was obsessed with anything otherwordly, which he found rather ironic considering what he was. His human theories on his kind were always pure gold to listen to and write about after their talks (seriously, his kind still believed in the rouge abductions? It was incredible!), and whenever he talked about his channel on YouTube, he would get exceptionally passionate about it. Eric's evidence and reports on alien sightings were hit and miss, as expected, but it fascinated him that the guy was wanting to prove his kind's existence. He understood why, but many outer societies were not sure that humans were stable enough to know about them. Rightfully so, considering how... barbaric some of the race was.

Ira hadn't meant to get so entangled in Eric's life, but it ended up that way. He became a cameraman and fellow theorizer of alien life (a vague one; he still couldn't get in contact with home, even with a fixed communicator, so he didn't want to give away his brethren). It progressed further and further until the one day they saw a ship, one Ira, even through an altered state of mind, could recognize as one from his home Rylon. He had to play it off as being excited when he was mostly confused. Sure, he was gone for three Earth years now, but he thought they'd leave him behind by now. He wasn't particularly well-known in the scout headquarters, so it was odd that another scouting ship would come around to see if he was alive. Once Eric had fallen asleep in his arms that night, he carefully left to tinker with his communicator until he finally got a signal. The searching ship was there to replace Ira if he wasn't found, but when they detected his ship and communicator nearby, he had been easily located and reported alive.

It was slow going in that regard of the alien's life; many days that could've been spent either peacefully alone or with his Eric were applied to conversing with Rylon's council of authority about what he had discovered and documented. When offered a way home four days into communicating, Ira denied it and carefully, almost as painfully as jumping into ice-cold water, explained his relationship with the eccentric human. It was difficult, awkward, and nerve-wracking, but the five members of the council allowed him to stay if he would keep them updated with how much the human knew about their kind. Ira promised to the terms with relieved excitement and was finally able to go about his time with Eric and their growing channel.

It had led him to the bush he was in now, still in his disguise as he watched what Eric called a kidnapping. Ira knew they were in way over their head once they watched the kid be rushed away in the car, but he couldn't make himself voice that doubt when his Eric came up with a plan to get physical evidence of the ship they saw. He didn't try to stop him either when Eric drove them to the station to make a deal. Gathering the records took longer than he had thought it would, but it was oddly parallel to his home's authorities in terms of procedure.

When the men came back with the phone call reports and basically told them that they were crazy and had been high on defective acid (he knew they shouldn't have done it that night, but it provided him an out he hadn't been expecting), Eric looked utterly crushed and panicked. He had swiftly left with Ira close behind, the alien's gut turning at the look that had painted his tense face. He had made the decision before they had even gotten ten feet within Eric's car.

"Let me drive. I've something to show you... and something to explain."

The words echoed between them as he drove far out to his repaired ship, thankfully still hidden away in an abandoned part of the woods far outside their city. Eric had tried to ask Ira what was going on, especially as they tracked down a rough path that had started to be made in his time on Earth, but the alien in plain sight didn't give any answers yet. It was driving the human crazy, Ira could tell.

When Eric saw the piecemeal ship sitting still in the leafy and green clearing Ira had called home, his questions multiplied from the one into tens of them. Ira let him rush around the ship and gawk at it in excitement, smiling at the happy look on his face. However, the distraction could only last for so long, and Eric had returned to Ira with big, wide eyes and a confused expression on his face.

"It looks like the one we saw that night... How did you...?"

"Well... it's mine. I... here, watch... and... know I love you, even if you do freak out over this. Uh, and yeah, it's fine to freak out here." Cryptic words leaving an even more troubled look on Eric's face, Ira took a couple of small steps back. He closed his eyes and slowly, his pale soft skin faded upward into rough magenta skin, and his limbs distorted back into their original places and lengths. Eric's eyes grew ever wider and horrified as he watched Ira change and flex his long and many limbs and, even more bizarrely, his bones underneath.

"What... What are you?!" The human cried as he stepped away further, covering his mouth with his trembling, tanned hand. Ira looked down at himself and look over his arms, his three fingers stretching and waggling a little. His pink and red eyes looked sad even without his usual eyebrows and pupils, and he sounded utterly upset as he spoke.

"I'm Ira, your... well, an alien. Always have been... I crash-landed here almost four years ago and I've been here since. I met you and... I decided to stay around." He explained as he picked at his clothes, some of which had been torn from his turning and growing of an extra set of legs. Eric hesitated before creeping closer and scanning Ira's dark, tall form. Ira let him, even extending his arms out and lifting two of his four legs to show him everything. His dark eyes met the soft and strange ones of the alien's, staring into them as he took the slender and oddly shaped hand into his own.

"Why did you stay? There's gotta be more fascinating things out in space than this planet." Eric asked, unnerved by the calloused and almost lizard-like feel of his hand but persevering to show support for his Ira. The alien gave a tense grin that could maybe pass for a smile, but it was still hard to tell with how his skull was stretching to do it. The dark-eyed man barely stopped himself from shivering away from the look.

"Nothing I've ever seen and documented has been as engrossing and wonderful as you. You... I don't know. You give me this certain happiness and peace that I don't think I've ever experienced in my life... I want to stay with you as long as you'll keep me. I know I'm, well, me, but," Ira paused when Eric leaned up and kissed a part of his face that was the human's equivalent to a cheek. Ira's eyes swirled with pink against a red background as he floundered with his words. A snort sounded from Eric as he kept his trademarked ecstatic smile his face.

"You weirdo... I do want to keep you around. Before you showed me this, I still thought you were a cool guy I had the pleasure of being around. Now, you're a cool alien that has the cutest sets of eyes." A wink added to Ira's sputtering, creating a perfect time for Eric to start laughing. Once Ira cooled down, he started laughing as well, the sound delightfully still the same as Eric had heard it.

Yeah, they'd be fine, eventually. Now it just meant Ira was staying for even longer on the planet Earth than he had originally planned, and a bit of getting used to what Ira was for Eric. He guessed that stray vein of lightning had been a good thing after all.


	3. Smile For Me, Baby!

Ryan always had a smile that always seemed to have a way to light up the world. It was almost as endearing as his laugh, a loud burst of sunlight in audio form. Shane would do anything to hear it again and again, and he’d do everything just to see Ryan smile for him. It was almost like a drug that you couldn’t get clean of, except Ryan was nowhere near as destructive as most of those addictive substances. The opposite, actually.  These past few weeks, however, he had been smiling less and less... his laughter wasn’t as full as it usually was. It almost sent Shane barreling into a cold orbit, shocked and horrified to find himself alone without his lifeline. He had to figure out a way to cheer him up. So, he set to work. Getting him out of the office would do him wonders, but he decided it could use a flavorful spin.

By one Friday morning, his plan was complete and ready for action. He asked Ryan to join him on a ride to a nature spot he found while running, and, as luck would have it, Ryan agreed to go check it out the next day. That’s how they found themselves driving out of town on a Saturday afternoon, talking about different flics they’d like to see or watch over again. It was a great start! Ryan was smiling better, and his laugh was even more bright than it had been in a while. So far, the first step of his plan was going perfectly!

“So, what did you find? You haven’t told me.” Ryan asked as they parked at the edge of a nature trail Shane had, in fact, ran before. The taller of their duo just smiled and got out, waving him out of the car to follow. The tanned man got out and did just that, joining up with Shane as the car locked with a push of the older's key fob.

“You’ll just have to wait and see! You’re gonna love it!” He chirped in an unusually chipper attitude as they started their trek down. The day was fair for California weather, warm and sunny with a slight wind bounding through the trees like a herd of rabbits. Shane couldn't have gotten luckier with the choice of day to do this little surprise he had set up. It took about fifteen minutes of joking around and walking off the beaten path before they got to the little abandoned shack he found. Before the duo stood a dark wooden building starting to be taken over by moss and vines, it's windows cloudy with age and dust on the inside. It gave a smell of rot, so no telling how stable it was. The cracked stone steps up to the door looked loose, but it probably could stand a few last uses.

“Here we are!”

“Huh?”

“I did some digging around about this place and I thought… maybe you’d like to see if there’s something here… I went in the other day and, heh, I’ll be honest… Something really weird happened.” Shane explained, rubbing the back of his neck like he did when he sometimes let it slip that he was a little nervous about something or other. Ryan’s eyes went super wide at the confession, starting to smile a little more about how Shane was opening up to the idea of the supernatural.

“What, really?! Come on, show me! What happened?” The younger shot off the questions at a speed that could rival that of light, and it made Shane warm up even more. No longer was he going to be stuck in that icy orbit. He was going to get Ryan smiling, and make sure it didn’t stop.

“Let’s go in, I’ll show you how far I got until lights started coming on... there are no power lines out here, so I have no idea how it happened.” Shane smiled to himself once his back was to Ryan and they had walked into the place, which was only big enough for a common area and kitchen, really— an old, ratty mattress was in the corner to the left of the door, so it seemed the wide open space doubled as a bedroom too. He looked around as Ryan mumbled something about it being creepy.

The place was dusty and had several cobwebs and active spider webs littered the ceiling and even floors, and several old iron pans were on the ground. Some papers added to the mess, and there were rotten sheets and clothes closer to the bed adjacent to the kitchen. All in all, it was disgusting, and the slight wind gently walked through the door and the cracks of the walls, as if it knew it couldn't blow too hard here.

Ryan was going to ask what kind of spirits were in the place when the dingy light above them started to flicker on, and the sheets of the spoiled mattress started to shift. The dark-haired man froze next to Shane and stared at the unnatural event with a tense jaw, Shane watching him with a slight smile. When Ryan went to look up at him, he had a panic-stricken expression stapled to his paling face with his eyes on the sheets.

“Shane… you found it… you found them…” Ryan said very quietly as the sheet further rose before slamming back against the bed. The light above them, that shouldn’t have worked at all, held a constant, bright shine, barely flickering. Shane watched it before looking towards the rundown kitchen and gasping. The shorter looked that way with an immediate snap of his to that direction. “Oh my god—!”

_”Leave my home… let me roam in peace…”_ A flickering, almost see-through vision of a man in mud-caked dungarees and tall black boots stood in the center of the kitchen, glowering at the beings in his home. His black hair was messy and sticking up, his cloudy white eyes were soul-piercing, and his tan long-sleeve shirt had a red stain covering the majority of his chest. Ryan almost screamed, his voice cracking on the noise he made as he ran out of the house in horror. The ghost watched it happen with a shrug, satisfied before he looked back to the man still in his home. Shane smirked when the human was gone, nodding his head to the spirit. _“You owe me, Madej…”_

“I know, August. Have a good nap. I’ll have some energy here tonight, I promise.” Shane let his eyes flick to a milky red color before he winked and made them turn back to their soft brown again. August rolled his nearly invisible irises with a cracking snicker, fading behind the veil once more. The tall man with brown hair ran out of the house after screaming in perceived fear, catching up with Ryan who was nearing the halfway mark of the road back to the car.

After the shock of the whole ghost ordeal wore off after a few beers at Ryan’s apartment, Ryan was smiling and babbling about finally proving to Shane ghosts were real. Shane played up the skeptical believer but kept it pretty convincing. Ryan didn’t need to know what he had done, nor what he was. He just had to keep Ryan smiling. That would be enough for the demon craving the human's attention and excess nervous energy.


	4. A Liar Amongst Us

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ayyyy, anyone want an Among Us AU no one really asked for??
> 
> For real though, I hope you enjoy this one! It was really fun taking some liberties with Imposter kills and anatomy in this, along with doing a little practice with characters I don't usually write about/as (i.e. Steven, Sara, Marielle, and Katie). Be aware, there is more graphic depictions of gore, as the deaths of certain characters can get really bad (the second kill, to be most specific). Exercise caution!  
> Anyway, have a great day!

It should have been a normal check of the ship and small tasks that needed to be done before arriving on base. It didn’t stay that way, why couldn’t it have stayed that way?

Sara knew they should’ve done medical scans before they had packed up to go, but this base check-up was an emergency that needed to get done as quickly as it could’ve. She would later blame herself for what happened aboard. It was mandatory now after the main base started to get reports about aliens coming in and destroying a few of their ships, but… she didn’t. She knew these professionals from the intergalactic university she went to all those years ago. She thought they would be spared. She thought...

“Gravity stabilized. All crewmates are free to complete delegated tasks across the ship.” The woman slid her helmet back on after delivering the command through the navigation bay’s overhead mic. She got up from her captain chair to double check some wires in the same bay, mumbling a song under breath before looking up to see Shane coming in to monitor their travel path. “Oh hey.”

Shane looked up from the board, smiling at her with his blue helmet on as well. “Hey, Sara. Course looks clear… we should be at the base in about an hour or so if space debris stays clear of the path… how’re you doing?”

“Great to hear… and I’m doing as best as I can. I heard that at this base we’re going to has that alien problem we’ve been getting reports about. I’m worried about bringing you guys there.”

“It’ll be fine… I’m sure we can deal with it.” Shane reassured before he stepped his tall self over to her and patted her shoulder gently. The blue of his suit complemented her purple suit nicely, she thought in the abstract, and that simplicity eased her a little more. A smile graced her features, her eyes crinkling up visibly. Based on how Shane's eyes crinkled up too, he had noticed and started smiling in response.

“Yeah… I think we can. Let’s go. I’ve gotta do my medical scan for the chie—” Red lights overhead started blaring with a short repeating alarm accompanying it. Shane and Sara looked up at the light before the two of them started running, Sara leading the charge. “It’s the reactor! It’s destabilizing!”

The cool-colored cladded members of the spacecraft raced out of the navigation bay before running across the cafeteria area and through the upper engine room to get to the reactor. Sara ran and slammed her hand on the far left pad with a terrified look on her face. “Hurry! It could tear this ship apart any second now!”

Shane broke out into a faster sprint and put his hand on the twin stabilizing pad across the room. After a couple of moments of worrying silence, the reactor finally cooled down to normal levels and the warning lights and alarm finally went off. Sara gave a relieved sigh and managed to get a hand under her helmet to rub her face. Shane walked over to her and rubbed her back gently. “It’s alright, it happens sometimes. Let’s keep working and get set up to help at the base.”

“Yeah… yeah. I’ll head to the medical bay to get a scan. Can you go make sure everything in the admin room is fine?”

“Yeah… I’ll see you around.” Shane nodded to her before pulling away and leaving down the right. Sara, with a deep sigh, left to the upper engine room again to get into the hall and down into the medical bay. She stood on the scanner and let the device check her and record her data. She went to check and see if anyone else had scanned in (so far her, and Mari, it seemed) when the lights dimmed before going out. First the ship reactor, now the accessory lights? What was happening? (She should’ve seen the signs…).

Sara blindly made her way down the barely lit hallways toward the electrical room to get the lights on when they flickered on and she was at the edge of the electrical room. “Well then…” She mumbled as she walked forward. She looked in and saw Katie closing the panel inside of the room, waving to her and getting a smile back (well, as much as she could with her yellow helmet still on). Sara was about to walk past the gas can when she saw sticky red leaking out from near it. With a confused look, she stepped over and screamed. Ryan, standing over the stabbed corpse of her pink-cladded friend, was staring at the bloody mess. No, it couldn’t have happened!

“Mayday, mayday! Steven is dead, emergency meeting now!” Sara almost screamed into the communication radio on her shoulder. Shane called for everyone to get to the main table of the cafeteria area of the ship, and Sara started running. As she ran past the containment units of the storage room and into the hall past the admin room, her brain started to piece together that Ryan could have stabbed the dark haired man in cold blood. Then she remembered about the aliens that could’ve killed him and taken his place… she didn’t want to believe it, but she couldn’t take any more risks.

Once she saw Mari and Shane around the round table, she sprinted to them and took off her helmet with effort. Mari’s eyes widened behind her dark green helmet when the accusation left her lips, Shane’s following in suit. “Ryan’s dead! He’s been replaced with a Samozvanets, and it’s killed Steven!!” The shriek bounced around the shivering room, and she heard her crew’s gasps from ahead and behind her. She stood next to Shane and turned to see Katie putting herself between them and the alien in an orange suit.

“What?! Me? I didn’t do anything to Steven! I found him on my way to fix the overhead lights!” Ryan shouted back at her, his eyes pleading and almost hurt. Betrayed. Sara looked away as she summoned more venom in utter spite of the tears welling up in her soft green eyes.

“No one else was there, Ry- you thing! And if it wasn’t you, why didn't you call us!?” Shane held Sara’s arm gently to keep her still as she barked out the words. She stepped back from where she had moved closer to the Samozvanets in disguise. Ryan tried to walk closer, but was shoved back by Katie who murmured gently, “Stay there…”

“I-I don’t know! I was freaked out, Sara!! I almost tripped over him when I was walking in the dark! There's no emergency lights in the storage room, so I didn't seem him until the lights came on!” Ryan cried out once he stood back, looking over Katie’s shoulder at his captain and his fellow crewmates. Mari was sobbing quietly, looking away and hiding behind the taller wire-specialist who looked sick himself. Sara just shook her head.

“We can’t take the risk, guys… we have to take a vote. Those in favor of kicking Ryan off the ship, raise your hands.” Sara croaked after the silence became too much on her soul. She raised her hand with Katie. Mari, with a choked whine, let her hand shakily ascend-- three to two.

“Mari…?” Ryan weakly asked, the name loaded with meaning and questions that he didn’t voice (or rather, couldn’t). Shane clutched onto Sara’s arm a little tighter, his eyes wide and staring at Ryan, “You guys c… can’t be serious… I’ll die if you eject me off…”

“It’s been decided… and ejecting you is… is protocol…” Sara barely got her words out when Shane spoke up.

“Fuck, guys, we can’t!” He said, imploring silently to his girlfriend and captain with a look that ripped at the strings of Sara’s beating heart further. She just shook her head again and pulled her arm away, looking to Katie’s back.

“T..take him to the rear airlock…”

Ryan fought against Katie’s rough shoving as he cried out his pleas, barely making ground back against the woman forcing him down towards the reactor room. Sara moved to help Katie, not missing how her eyes were red from her crying. With some effort and a lot of kicking and screaming on all parties, Ryan was thrown and locked in the airlock. He was sobbing uncontrollably at that point, but Katie, with a shaking hand, slammed the airlock opening button. Roars of air screamed behind the reinforced iron doors of the room. A scream sounded before suddenly growing quiet. Sara watched through watery tears as Rya-- the alien was yanked into the vacuum of space with only an hour’s worth of air in his air tanks. Once the doors were reclosed, only the sounds of sobs were left to listen to in the ear-ringing silence.

“Let’s… let’s go. Back to your quarters… I’ll handle everything, just… go on.” Sara spoke up as she turned to Shane and Mari. Shane just turned and left as Katie and Mari left with each other, holding each other with soft sniffles and tears as they walked to their shared quarters. Sara left down the cold hall towards the reactor, stopping in the security room to sob quietly for a few moments. She knew that the monster was gone, but it didn’t bring Ryan back, and it hurt. It hurt to know her friend was dead somewhere and that… that _thing_ had tried to take his place. If only it had been right.

The lights went out again, and Mari’s scream echoed from nearby not long after. Sara snapped to and raced out of the room in the pitch black. Her purple boots echoed down the hall as she heard the scream abruptly stop closer to where the electrical room was. She raced past the lower engine and down, and in the darkness, she could make out shiny eyes peering at her. The smell of blood was heavy in the air thanks to her lack of helmet, and with the weak emergency lights outside the electrical room showed a yellow cladded figure standing over the half corpse of a green-dressed woman. Sara froze in horror at the bloody scene all over the electrical hall, the red light only adding to the horror of the strewn about intestines across the scene, blood splatters and pools thickening along the frigid walls and flooring of metal, and the missing top half of Marielle’s body laying out with one leg bent up towards the room of the ship. Katie looked back at her sans her helmet, her face twisted with a smile that stretched up to her empty, glassy eyes of off white unnaturally. The grin was bathed in red light and burgundy liquid as she started stalking towards Sara, quiet steps coming closer to the beat of an unseen clock.

“No! Stay back!! Fuck you, you killed her! You killed Steven and Ryan and Mari, how fucking dare you!!? YOU LIED TO ME!!” Sara screamed as she started backing away, turning to go into a dash and call Shane over her shoulder radio. When she tried pressing her radio call-in button, only deafening static met her-- communications were down, of fucking course.

“You can’t run, Sar…” Katie called in a laugh from not far behind the purple-suited captain. In the darkness, Sara couldn’t see much of anything, vague shapes and lights of necessary equipment and the rare foreboding red of emergency lights lighting up her way from the lower engine, past the reactor and security section, and into the upper engine room. Sara kept screaming for her boyfriend's name, for him to save her, but he must’ve been too far because he didn’t so much as respond. Eventually, the deadly chase ended mere feet from the airlock she had condemned Ryan to die in. Oh, the irony, she would think dismally in her final moments.

Katie’s stretchy, spiked tongue stabbed her through her stomach, a fiery pain that worsened when she was easily lifted into the air. Her pleas for help and mercy stuttered from the lack of air her pained body was starting to get. Dragged backward and down, Sara looked back at Katie’s grinning face and was further terrified that her suit had opened vertically like a slitted mouth, the zipper revealing itself to actually be a set of jagged and sharp teeth accompanying the large mouth. “Fucking… monster…”

“Big talk coming from the one with a trigger-happy mouth… I bet you didn’t even remember seeing me in the electrical room when you found that Steven guy, huh? You just saw Ryan and decided he had to die too. Hm… well, this was fun, but I’ve got your little boyfriend to infect after this and I can’t keep this drawn out for too much longer. Bye, short-stack.” After the horribly raspy voice spoke and laughed at Sara’s previous actions, two warm hands gripped the sides of her head, gripping the curls closest to the scalp to lock onto the best way grip her vulnerable head. Sara sobbed as she shut her eyes, begging for forgiveness from friends and lover silently.

She couldn’t have seen the signs, she knew that now. She wouldn’t have had all the pieces even if things had been different, if it had been someone else had stumbled upon Steven like how she or Ryan did. With that endmost acceptance, the Samozvanets masquerading in Katie’s skin swiftly snapped Sara’s neck and tossed her limp and still warm body against the airlock’s doors before stalking her way towards the male resting quarters, where the final human man would surely meet a fate worse than death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a fun detail in case you don't know what Samozvanets means: the word is Bulgarian and loosely translates to imposter-- I thought it would be more fun to use that instead of just calling someone an Imposter. Realism! -jazz hands-


End file.
